Le faux pas

"Faux Pas" has two meanings in French : 1)to trip over 2) the expression which the English borrows from French = to make a foolish mistake;both meanings can apply to Ormesson's thriller.

Influenced by the Americans psychological thrillers and the French films noirs of the forties/fifties ,Ormesson knows his classics : the cliff and the mysterious suicidal woman will remind you of "Vertigo " ; the policemen stopping the car is reminiscent of "psycho" ; the rope in the final scenes comes directly from "Plein Soleil " aka " Purple noon" ; the shoes ,shown twice in close shot are Hitchcockesque to the core .

That does not mean "Le Faux Pas" is devoid of interest ,quite the reverse! The director takes advantage of the beautiful landscapes of a rocky coast and of the lovely Cassis harbor on the Riviera ; Jean-Claude Pascal ,who has got only one scene ,makes all his sentences count and the viewer does not know whether he's a good husband or a pervy vulture who wants to latch onto his wife's fortune .The shadow of a coat and of a hat in the dark house makes you feel a human presence .The screenplay may possess considerable appeal for Boileau-Narcejac 's buffs .

Minor quibble :Yori Bertin's performance is quite bland and never,in a month of Sundays , one believes she 's a tormented soul, verging on lunacy :it's not the return of Kim Novak ;besides ,she 's supposed to be Madame Langerot née Greenwood :not only she speaks French without the slightest accent,but she also never utters a single word in her first language !

But the screenplay is strong enough to sustain interest and suspense till the last pictures ;the last sequence is another variation on "vertigo" .